Hijacked Painting , Pleased to sell another print and I will hold it up to the screen...

The internet is a dangerous place and I am very unhappy to announce that my second best-selling print was hijacked from a site and put on another site where people can download it for free.  So far, there have been 290 downloads and I am one outraged artist!  I sent a cease and desist email and it was returned to me so I am looking into other avenues of action.  I live to paint but I do not work for free.

On a lighter note I am pleased to sell prints as postcards of Sweet Pea in The Morning to a great Nebraska  patron.  This is one of my favorite Blue Ridge Parkway paintings of a scene at Rock Castle Gorge.  I used to tease my naturalist husband, Clyde Kessler, that he should have a mail box at this sight.  This is one of his main birding and butterfly locations and he has led many hawk watches there.

A few weeks ago we discovered that we had a mouse in the kitchen leaving lots of calling cards on the counters and drawers.  My husband decided to order a Have a Heart mousetrap so he could take it somewhere else rather than killing it.

He called me up about all the options.  After a long list I asked him if he would like me to see if I could find the mouse, hold it up to the computer screen, and see which one it liked best.  His reply was to ask the mouse if it could do a better job than our wireless one and we would hire it.  A little mouse humor to brighten an artist with a serious copyright infringement to contend with.



Don't forget about my Special Promotions on Fine Art America! 40% off popular paintings with a 30 day money back guarantee, including shipping!  You can't lose!

Also, look for my drawing Reaching Out on The Mindy Project.  It was visible on a hilarious episode called The Wedding Crushers!

Sold another print of A Break in the Clouds, one of Wildflower Current and Maybe they struck a rock...

So pleased to sell another large canvas print of A Break in the Clouds and my first print of Wildflower Current!  Both of these paintings are very special to me.  My husband, Clyde Kessler has spent countless hours researching birds and butterflies at Rock Castle Gorge on The Blue Ridge Parkway which is where A Break in the Clouds comes from.  Wildflower Current is one of my best celebrations of color and texture!  It is a vibrant beauty and I hope to sell many more prints of it.  The original is still available.  A Break in the Clouds sold the first time I exhibited it.

I have both paintings in the Limited Time Promotions section of Fine Art America.  They are on pages three and four.  Check it out!  Large(24"x36") canvas prints at 40% off available for a short time.

http://fineartamerica.com/art/all/all/special+promotions?page=3

http://fineartamerica.com/art/all/all/special+promotions?page=4

I get a lot of scammers on my phone regarding painting sales.  I have mentioned in previous blogs about the scammers that want to send me a check that is more than the price of the painting and then I am supposed to pay their  private shipper out of the excess amount.  Of course, the check is bogus and I would be out the money I send the shipper that never shows up if I were stupid enough to fall for the scam.  Funny thing.  I stopped getting the scams for such a long time that I said to my husband that maybe the head scammer sent out a message to not waste your text money on me.

A few days ago they started up again!  My husband said maybe they struck a rock on the river and all their equipment fell off the raft they were living on.  They must have re-built and gotten another computer and cell phone.  Anyway, they still have no hope with me.

Now They are Coming to the Door and the Big Three are Coming Along

As I mentioned in another blog my husband and I are two of about five people in the world that don't have cable and are still holding out against the continual barrage of advertisements.  My husband says the other three are in the Antarctica photographing penguins.  Every week we get four or five offers in the mail for cable, satellite, dish, etc.  I am forever tearing up these letters.  This last week they got tough.  We have had two cable guys actually come to our door.  This has never happened before.  It is interesting to me that this new effort coincides with my digital TV problems that would be cured by cable.  When it is hot I can't get Judge Judy or Big Bang reruns which is about all I watch.  We lost PBS with digital but I can find the programs I watched on DVDs in the library.  We are not giving in!  I am a movie buff and I can live without TV and I refuse to pay to watch it.  ARE YOU CABLE GUYS LISTENING!  GIVE UP!  WE WILL NOT SURRENDER!

My three large paintings are coming along and I am definitely changing my approach as always.  Painting, like my hair, is a new experience every day!  I never know what to expect as I try to boss them around and instead they boss me around until I give in and just enjoy the ride.  Two of them are shore scenes and one is another field near Rocky Knob where my husband should have a mail box.  I think there should be a marker where he sits during hawk migration.  Any way it is great to have more time to paint and I will be pleased to add them to my portfolio on the web.

Be sure to check out my special canvas print offers of A Break in the Clouds, Reaching Out, and Cheers.  The offer starts tomorrow.

It is Great to Talk to New Patrons and You have heard of the Hound of the Baskervilles...

The internet has made us all next door to each other which is great when you are selling artwork.  I really enjoy communicating with people I have never met and probably wouldn't have met without my website.  A patron from Sterling VA recently contacted me about purchasing some of my prints for his office and I have enjoyed our emails.  He bought one large canvas print and is considering buying more.  Coincidentally, my younger sister lives in Sterling and I'm sure she will drop buy to see the painting.  I have several paintings of her in my portfolio. The world truly can be a small place.

I am going to sound like a broken record but I can't believe how noisy the miniature doberman dogs next door are.  I don't want any one to think I hate dogs because I certainly don't.  We have a great little labrador mix but she is so old she hardly makes any noise at all these days.  The people that own the five screeching dogs were told a number of years ago that they could not have any more dogs due to negligence.  Social Services has since got them to clean up their act and I am not about to alert animal control and have their kid's dogs taken away. But why five?  I can understand two so they can keep each other company but five yappers is hard on the rest of us.  You have heard of the Hound of the Baskervilles.  Well, these dogs are the Howling Runts of Radford.  Sometimes the noise is so loud it sounds like they are all squeaking.  My husband said that maybe we could oil them.  How I wish we could!

So Glad to Sell Another Canvas Print of A Break in the Clouds and I Think I am one of Those People...

I'm so pleased to sell another large canvas print of one of my two most popular pieces of artwork on Fine Art America.  A Break in the Clouds and Reaching Out have sold more than any of my other paintings or drawings.  It is exciting to see my work so high in the search results.  If you put Mountains Paintings in the search, A Break in the Clouds is #3 out of 10,000+.  If you put Mountains oil  paintings in the search it is #1 out of 1790.  It is also #3 out of 6304 Nature Oil paintings.  I work hard at promoting my artwork and am pleased to see increased sales. 

On Facebook today there was a joke with Daffy Duck about stupid people.  The gist was that a day without stupid people would be... I don't know.  I'll let you know if it ever happens.  I decided to share the joke with my 1265 friends and a lot of people liked it.  A while after I shared it occurred to me that I couldn't really agree with Daffy Duck because I can be pretty stupid myself so I added that as a comment.  I added that I do some real stupid things but I don't think I am stupid 24/7.  I hope there aren't any people I know that would disagree.  I think we are all smart and stupid at times.  The trick is to be more smart than stupid.  Live and learn or is it live and learn too late?

Be sure to check out my weekly specials.  Starting tomorrow you can get 40% off of large canvas prints of A Break in the Clouds, Poppy Twirl, and Stepping Stones on the New River.

Smelling up the House and In My Next Life...

I am happily working on three large paintings right now and the smell from the paintings is rather strong.  I have an exhaust fan that changes the air in the studio every five minutes but it really can't do much about oil paint layers drying on large pieces of hardboard.  The first stages of my paintings are not interesting.  I spend a lot of time analyzing the space and value pattern.  In my opinion, and I think the opinion of most artists, how these two things are handled make or break art.  All the dazzling color and intricate texture patterns can't make up for poor space or value patterns.  I don't think the average person understands this but it is extremely important to me that my paintings have strong visual structure.  I used to think teachers that talked about art this way were either nuts or making it up to sound smart.  Now I talk exactly the way they did.  Art is quite a weird journey.

My husband likes to make cracks about mirrors.  The older we get, the funnier the cracks are.  He said he caught a look at the mirror from a distance and it was laughing at him and saying it was going to go on strike.  It couldn't take reflecting us anymore and it hopes to come back in the next life as a dog dish.

Be sure to check out my Limited Time offers on Fine Art America.  My most popular painting, "A Break in the Clouds", is on special as are "Samantha", and "Alan by our Window".

Check out my limited promotion this week and I must have a sign on the back of my car...

I am pleased to offer large canvas prints(24"x36") of popular paintings at a greatly reduced price this week. I am very happy with how well my work shows up in the search results on Fine Art America. One of the specials is for "A Break in the Clouds". This painting is number one out of 5436 in Nature Oil Paintings. It is number one out of 1094 in Mountain Oil Paintings and number two out of 8344 in Original Oil Paintings. I work hard to promote my work and it is great to see the results in the searches and in sales. My work is my life and I want it to reach as many places as possible.

I have come to the conclusion that there is a sign on the back of my car. It must say, FOLLOW THIS CAR AS CLOSE AS YOU CAN. No matter what the speed limit, no matter if I am going the speed limit or going over the speed limit, I always have cars so close the bumpers could kiss if they had lips. Am I the only one that thinks cars should be a car length apart for every ten miles they are traveling? It creeps me out to have cars so close. There isn't anything in my car of interest and I am not going 20 miles over to get them off my back. Oh well. Please back off!